The Book of X-O Manowar

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Extra Life could represent the armor like Hulk Buster.

Why is this now okay when I was banned from bumping Avengers Stark to 5 Life?

[johnny139]

The X-O armor is on a whole scale beyond anything Iron Man's cooked up. It's like, "swim around in the plasma of the sun" levels of durable. So I could see just ticking his Life up a bit to compensate for the fact he's going to be hurting himself a lot.

(For what it's worth an Iron Man Extremis could tick up to 5 or even 6 life. I think I'd consider him a Cyborg though.)

[LordVenoc]

Yeah Shanhara is a sentient entity. Definitely not just a tech suit, but is a living force. It has bonded with Aric, and later becomes a part of him to replace his hand.

If it wasn't overly complicated, I'd probably push for the armor itself to be equipment, given its status and the number of others that have worn it/gone after it.

I may try a Vine design that comes with it, or a Shanhara design itself, but that'd be a ways off.

[Tornado]

The scary part of being an EQ Glyh is someone else wearing it.
A permanent glyph may work, do not know enough about the armor.
If it is an entity it could be a figureless card.
Sounds like the armor's power could be explored more.
Sounds like a cool character.

[johnny139]

I think it's kind of a Venom situation - the two combined is the most iconic way to represent it, but you could also justify a solo "Venom Symbiote" design that lets him bond with whoever. Same with the armor.

[LordVenoc]

Originally Posted by johnny139

I think it's kind of a Venom situation - the two combined is the most iconic way to represent it, but you could also justify a solo "Venom Symbiote" design that lets him bond with whoever. Same with the armor.

Yup. Also, you wouldn't be at full power just being anyone with Shanhara. There does have to be a proper match. It could be interesting to have it where drafting it with XO would soup him up more, but that's beside the point.

Sounds like increased life may be the way to go, covering the distinct healing provided by the Armor. A healing factor itself really probably wouldn't fit, and I think the life boost will help some of the concerns had about going against defensive powers.

[Ronin]

X-O MANOWAR CLASS ARMOR 4
Start the game with 4 blue X-O Markers on this card. X-O Manowar adds 1 to his Move, Range, Attack, and Defense for each X-O Marker on this card. After attacking or defending with X-O Manowar, if you used the Sheer Force or Righteous Defense special power, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 2 or less, remove an X-O Marker from this card.

SHEER FORCE
After attacking with X-O Manowar, if the defending figure rolled defense dice did not receive a wound, you must attack that figure again with X-O Manowar, rolling 1 additional die for each time he previously attacked this turn. If more than 8 dice are rolled when X-O Manowar attacks, if he has attacked more than once this turn, he receives a wound. X-O Manowar cannot attack more than 3 times in a single turn.

RIGHTEOUS DEFENSE
Whenever a friendly figure is destroyed, you may place it on this card. When X-O Manowar defends against a normal attack, after rolling defense dice, you may add an automatic shield to whatever was rolled. Then, if there is a figure on this card and you rolled more skulls than shields, the attacking figure receives one wound. At the end of the round, move any figure placed on this card with Righteous Defense onto its own Army Card.

Okay, a little late to the game on this design... missed a lot of the workshopping.

I feel like this could stand to be simplified... he's pretty complex, especially for a big 'marquee character for his publisher' sort of character. I feel like I'm gonna be checking a couple things on every die roll he makes and I'm gonna be rereading the powers a lot.

I highlighted a couple things in the powers that jumped out at me as easiest to simplify.... could we have a little commonality between the bits in blue? I think if there were symmetry between those effects (attacker receives a wound when ____) they would be a lot easier to remember.

The green part feels like an extra roll that's gonna get invoked a lot. Could we at all adjust his marker-losing to resolve cleanly in one roll? Or have him roll for this less often or something?

[johnny139]

I agree 100% on complexity. In my defense they were a lot shorter when I first wrote them.

I'm interested in symmetry there, but no ideas are coming to mind. For reference, the theme on them is as follows:

Sheer Force - Aric is angry and stubborn. If he can't break through your defense, he will keep attacking, even if it hurts him and/or breaks his armor.

Righteous Defense - Aric is easily provoked and very defensive when it comes to his people. If you harm them, he will respond aggressively.

I'm pretty married to the implementation in Sheer Force, but don't really care how exactly it works for Righteous Defense. We could always simplify it to something like: he always gets the auto-shield. If there's a destroyed figure on this card, you can trade the auto-shield for a wound on the opponent. I feel like that might be cleaner?

For the d20 rolls, I agree. Maybe either have it trigger once per player turn, if a special power was used? Or once per round, if he took a turn? We'd probably have to tweak the rolls but that's not an issue.

[Lord Pyre]

I like the new Sheer Force. If I'm reading correctly he still has a chance of taking two wounds? Still not sure I like that, what if at the end of his turn, he would receive one wound if the requirements are met?

RD is fairly simple, but wordy. We could always riff off of Bizarro's power if you want him being aggressively protective. At this stage I would just take out XO first, which he's not really that durable at all (for his cost).

It's redesigning your power completely so I totally understand if it's too much, but he gets a defense boost with friendlies, so your opponent want to now kill his allies first. He also helps protect his allies with auto-wounds, so your opponent wants to kill him first. Catch-22 for your opponent, which is pretty fun.

If X-O Manowar is within 5 clear sight spaces of a figure you control, add 1 automatic shield to his defense. If a figure you control is attacked and at least one skull is rolled, after that figure roll defense dice you may move X-O Manowar adjacent to the attacking figure if possible and roll one unblockable attack die against that figure.

[LordVenoc]

We getting anywhere near this maybe moving to initial johnny? I know we'd discussed me potentially running that for you on this guy, so with me approaching a good testing window I wanted to see where we were here, as it also didn't seem like there'd been much movement.

[johnny139]

There were some issues raised about general trimming that I would want to get to before moving to initial - I meant to reply to LP's post but forgot about it. Something like - I don't mind a ground up rewrite of Righteous Defense, and with the placing a dead figure on the card I'm sort of leaning in that direction. I would still want it to play with the other Unity guys well, though.

One thought is having it trigger whenever a friendly figure is destroyed. Make you focus on Aric and have him draw fire. Maybe like this:

RIGHTEOUS DEFENSE
Once per turn, after an opponent's figure within 5 clear sight spaces of X-O Manowar attacks a figure you control with a normal attack, if that figure was destroyed by that attack, you may roll one unblockable attack die against the attacking figure.

Thoughts? Maybe too wimpy?

[Lord Pyre]

That's not really a "defense" power, but I would still trigger it on wounds rather than destruction, personally (Unless the theme calls for it! I don't know much about this guy!). If he's going to be blasting anyone to hits his buddies I want it to be potent, personally. Yours currently will rarely trigger, especially with the 5 spaces clause.

Also if we use a primarily attack based power here, do you want to bump his defense up?